Former Bus Driver Steals the Will of the People

Nicolás Maduro, the former bus driver turned president of Venezuela, is a miracle worker. Under his inspired reign, the economy of the country lost three-quarters of its output, yet he somehow managed to convince a majority of voters to grant him another term in office – his third.

President Maduro claims to have won Sunday’s election by securing 51% of the vote against the 44% that went to the opposition. He celebrated his dubious win with a grand fireworks display that lit up the sky over Caracas. Jubilant crowds were shown on national television as definitive proof that the nation looks forward to losing whatever has not yet been destroyed by Mr Maduro’s formidable incompetence at public administration.

Under President Maduro and his equally hapless predecessor Hugo Chávez Venezuela has been reduced to a faint shadow of its former self. Once upon a time, this was the most prosperous country in Latin America – by the proverbial country mile. Sitting squarely atop the world’s largest reserves of oil, and the first country in the region to do away with military rule, Venezuela was known as an oasis of stability and a fount of progress throughout the region.

The oil is still there, but it’s not flowing. Mismanagement, corruption, and plain thievery have reduced national oil company PDVSA to an empty shell, unable to pump, refine, or ship oil. The country’s single-most important source of income has been rendered useless by Mr Maduro’s political appointees who not only raided the corporate accounts but also chased out skilled engineers and workers who did not publicly align with the regime’s ‘Bolivarian’ ideology.

What that world-view entails apart from destroying wealth wherever it can be found is not quite clear. It does includes almost daily diatribes against real or imaginary foes, with the United States taking top honours. US sanctions, imposed after the brutal repression of popular protests in 2014 and strengthened five years later after another bout of popular discontent, have been the preferred scapegoat rallied by Mr Maduro whenever the dismal outcomes of his policies have been questioned.

Mass Exodus

About a quarter of the population have fled since 2014 in what became the largest-ever exodus in the history of the Latin America. Almost eight million Venezuelans left their country. Most faced an perilous odyssey to reach a welcoming place, traversing huge swaths of the continent infested with rebel armies, drug syndicates, crime gangs, private militias, people smugglers, and of course countless uncooperative officials eager to relief refugees of both hope and coin.

It is not the first time that Mr Maduro steals an election. In 2018, he had his mates at the electoral commission bar any candidate deemed a threat. This time, he had the hugely popular María Corina Machado disqualified on spurious grounds. In the end, Mr Maduro had to face Edmundo González, a 74-year-old former diplomat who was heading for a landslide victory according to all opinion polls.

On election night the first signs of the upcoming ‘steal’ arrived early. Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino López appeared on television in full regalia, adorned with impressive rows of medals, to warn viewers that no civil unrest would be tolerated. Next, the electoral commission, a body stuffed with Maduro acolytes, announced a six-hour delay in the counting citing ‘terrorists’ without giving any additional details. The next time the commission spoke, it proclaimed Nicolás Maduro the undisputed winner of the vote.

The brazenness of the Venezuelan regime is remarkable. The steal was done openly, shamelessly, and without the sophistication often employed elsewhere when rulers want to hang on just a little longer. “I won, you lost, and that’s all folks!”

Predictably and justifiably, the opposition immediately rejected the official result. Their own count, using the printed tallies each polling station is required to keep and publish, points to Mr González receiving around seventy percent of the votes. Interestingly, only about two-fifths of polling stations complied with the legal requirement. The others simply refused to provide printouts of the results.

Happy Rouges

The world’s rouge regimes, including China, Russia, Syria, and Iran, dispatched congratulatory messages to Mr Maduro. The US and European Union did not. Brazil, arguably the only power that counts in the region, was slow to react as per its usual. The country has since asked Venezuela to explain the numbers and offer some form of proof. Other countries took a more proactive approach. Chile’s leftwing president Gabriel Boric, a man of impeccable rectitude and moral authority, demanded full transparency and called the result of Sunday’s election “hard to believe.”

Argentina’s libertarian president Javier Milei, who sports a notoriously short fuse, called the vote in Venezuela ‘a scam’ and said that his country will not recognise Mr Maduro as Venezuela’s legitimate president.

Mr Maduro reacted to the critique by withdrawing all his country’s diplomats from Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Peru, Panama, Uruguay, and the Dominican Republic, citing “meddling actions and statements by the host governments.”

Mr González, the opposition candidate, has called for reconciliation and dialogue whilst also saying that he and his followers will not rest until the will of the people is respected. Mr González wants to avoid widespread protests that give the regime an opportunity to clamp down. Mr Maduro is eager to prove that he is the only one who can maintain order in the country and protect the nation against the ‘chaos’ he says the opposition will bring.

Fearful Generals

Also, Venezuela’s opposition, long fractured and ineffective, knows from experience that mass protests do not lead to change as long as the army stays loyal to the president. Ms Machado, the disqualified candidate, has begun launching direct appeals to the generals: “A message for the military: the people of Venezuela have spoken. They don’t want Maduro. It is time to be on the right side of history. You have a chance and that chance is now.”

However, it seems unlikely that the army will switch sides. Its generals have plush and lucrative jobs running, and ruining, state enterprises. They also fear that a change in government may uncover their complicity in the rape of the country. They have much to lose and little to gain by ousting their bus driver – a useful idiot if there ever was one.

Meanwhile, Mr Maduro issued a warning to opposition leaders, including Mr González and Ms Machado, that he’ll hold them personally liable for any ‘criminal violence’ that may occur. According to human rights organisations, more than 115 demonstrations have been put down by the riot police with about a thousand arrests made.

Before the vote, almost a third of the Venezuelans who have not yet left the country said they would consider doing so in case of a win by Mr Maduro. Before long, they’ll convergence on the US southern border.

Cover photo: Former bus driver Nicolás Maduro in the spotlight, waving the flag of the country he broke.

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© 2013 Photo by Prensa Miraflores